Vallisneria Question

I'm a beginner with a 58 gallon tank, 196 Watts of CF lighting, CO2 injection and Flourite substrate. The plants I have seem pretty happy and are growing well. The one exception, I think, is the vallisneria. They've put out daughters and I can see some impressive roots on one near the glass, but the new growth doesn't look right. The leaves are spotted with a fairly regular pattern of dark red/brown "bars". The new leaves also have a reddish hue to them. The older growth that floated on the surface had to be trimmed away because of algae (hair, I think).

I'm using Tropica Mastergrow at the recommended dosage. Doing 1/3 water changes weakly and have a KH of 4-5. The GH is only 3-4, but TDS is 250 ppm.

I'm not using the EI. Right now all I do is add 30 ml of Tropica Mastergrow after the water change. Tropica doesn't say what's in it other than Iron and other essentials with no nitrates or phosphates.

Lifetime Member

You have a lot of light for that size tank, so I strongly suggest you use the EI method of dosing, and dose all of the plant nutrients. Nitrate and phosphate, as well as iron test kits are notoriously innacurate, unless you verify their accuracy by callibrating them with samples of water having known amounts of nitrate, etc. in them. With the EI method you don't need to test the water for nutrients.

You also need CO2 with that much light. And, for that big a tank it will be much cheaper and more sitisfactory if you go to pressurized CO2, using a drop checker to determine how much you are putting into the water so you can adjust it correctly.

Back to the vals: As I remember, new growth on the vals I have had, especially on the non-spiral ones, has been golden to reddish color until they get to be a few inches long. Maybe I am confusing it with another plant, but I'm pretty sure I have seen that.

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